


French War Camp, 27 April 1636

by Anima Nightmate (faithhope)



Series: All For One and, well, you know the rest... [20]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Correspondence, Decryption, Embedded Images, Erotic letters, Established Relationship, F/M, Franco-Spanish War, Injury, Injury Recovery, Letters, Light Dom/sub, Love Letters, M/M, Major Character Injury, Multi, Oral Sex, Period-Typical Homophobia, Porthos is a good mate, Seduction, Third Wheel, War, Wartime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 01:53:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16108328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithhope/pseuds/Anima%20Nightmate
Summary: He reads her letter to the weary tent, feels them ease into words of home, no matter the shape.The first big wave of refugees also came last week. The rest of the city can no longer ignore the war… But the city is big enough, and the coffers deep enough – if the war will truly be over in the next six months, we can feed those extra mouths.The men look at each other in silence.*Another installment in the long series of wartime correspondence (and other pieces based around the black box that is the Musketeers during the Spanish War).





	1. Afternoon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Embedded letter images will have a text version in the end notes.
> 
> Rating is for the second chapter…

D’Artagnan curses himself into the tent, ducking this time, throws the wood down by the brazier, and hurls himself into a camp chair.

“Easy,” mutters Porthos, barely looking up from the disassembled musket he’s cleaning like he holds a personal grudge against it.

“Sorry.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be resting that leg anyway?”

“How’s your shoulder?”

“Fine,” he sighs, “point taken.”

D’Artagnan stretches, squirms into a more comfortable position, and puffs his breath out in a long release, which seems to take some of his frustration with it. “Any news?”

“Nothing yet.”

“Right. Well, good job we’re supposed to be resting up, hm?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” says Porthos, “I forgot.”

D’Artagnan cocks a look at him.

“Post.”

A broad grin splits d’Artagnan’s face as he rises to his feet, and Porthos finds himself glad to see it. Grinning in reply, he heaves himself up, sparing his shoulder with all-too-accustomed practice, digging in his pocket and proffering the flat package.

The paper is smoother and the seal heavier than the one he sent her, and it’s bound in ribbon instead of filched twine. Reflexively, he hugs it to his chest as he limps lightly back to his chair.

“Gonna read it out?” asks Porthos as they sit then, as he takes a breath, “Or yeah, no – wait for him.”

He nods, but finds he can’t wait to open it for himself. As half-expected, a smaller, denser package falls out addressed to **_Athos, Captain of the King’s Musketeers_**. He shakes his head, smiling, and pockets it for later. He reads his own name in her hand, runs his finger along hers, then folds it loosely in half to wait.

He’s still smiling, soft and gentled, when Athos’s tread, freighted with its newly familiar heft, tramps into the tent.

Athos sees something like content where he was expecting the pettishness and spoiled temper of his, of. Dammit, that openness cracks his own heart’s armour from the inside and he smiles, hesitant, for what feels like the first time in days. Weeks, probably.

His eyes narrow, taking in the paper and ribbon in d’Artagnan’s lap, creasing across that new scar as he says: “Give me a few minutes to get this off and then let’s hear it.”

“Do you have the time?”

“Yeah: sure you don’t have any more young widows to send personal letters to?”

Porthos and d’Artagnan smirk and he gives them his blankest stare in return as he begins to strip off his outer gear.

D’Artagnan reads the letter to the weary tent, feels them ease into words of home, no matter the shape.

“Kind,” remarks Porthos. “Here: she doesn’t know about your leg, does she?”

“Didn’t want to worry her,” mutters d’Artagnan. Athos waves him on, his own expression studiously blank.  
  


The men look at each other in silence.  
  


He clears his throat, scans rapidly down the page.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #### Text of the first part of Constance’s Letter:
> 
> 10 February 1636
> 
> Dearest d’Artagnan,
> 
> Thank you so much for your letter. I’m glad you’re well, if weighted, but so sorry to hear about your dear horse. Please tell Porthos to take better care of himself – we can’t afford to lose him! Tell him I hope he is recovered.
> 
> #### Text of the second part of Constance’s Letter:
> 
> It took me longer than I thought it would to write this. Everything is changing here, and fast. The last of the sound recruits went to join you last week, as I’m sure you know by now, and Minister Treville has nearly got the funds approved for training the cadets. He took me along to see about what it would take to change the accommodation to suit them. It was strange to see it so quiet and still, with only Old Serge and his boy rattling about the place. Treville wants to brings back the swordmaster, Fabron, if he’ll come, to train the lads. I can’t imagine he won’t. It will be good for the garrison to live again. There are more measurements to be done and many changes to make. The Queen has promised some of my time to the project, should it be successful.
> 
> The first big wave of refugees also came last week. The rest of the city can no longer ignore the war. They have been settled in a part of town that was mostly warehouses. Treville is not pleased – he pressed for the refugees who had no kin here to be quartered throughout the city, taken into people’s homes if necessary, but he says the King listened to other voices, who told him that they would surely be happier with their own people: why add to their burden by separating them? I can see what they mean, but Treville said that this was not a good way to start. I can see what he means too. But the city is big enough, and the coffers deep enough – if the war will truly be over in the next six months, we can feed those extra mouths.
> 
> #### Text of the third part of Constance’s Letter:
> 
> I do miss you very much. Six months seems long and short together. But we’ve come through this time already, we can surely come through a little more.
> 
> #### Text of the last part of Constance’s Letter:
> 
> Come home to me safe, and well, my love.
> 
> Your loving wife,
> 
>  _Constance_ x


	2. First Watch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Embedded letter images will have a text version in the end notes.

Porthos has gone, for the first time in a while, to find a game, stepping out into the clattering dark with an oilcloth hood over his head in testament to his distaste for the rain. He tells them, distinctly, that he won’t be gone much above an hour or so. Two, tops. He tells d’Artagnan to mind his leg.

“So,” drawls Athos into the settling silence, “what did we miss earlier?”

“Porthos grumbling about cleaning cloths…” His eyes are bright with challenge.

He slants a rusty smile at him, draws a little closer. “In Madame’s letter…?”

“Oh… that… nothing much. Some _domestic_ details…”

“Is that so…?”

“I wouldn’t want to bore you with them…”

“And if I want to be; want to share your _stultification_ …?”

“Oh…”

Athos is very close now. Closer than he’s been in weeks. It’s been _weeks_.

Oh God.

“All right. I’ll read it to you.”

“Please do. I’ll make myself comfortable.” He feeds some fuel to the brazier, down on his haunches, and the light flares across his face, weary lines bathed in it, and he thinks: _what I wouldn’t give to help him sleep tonight._

He clears his throat.

His breathing hitches a little, echoing Athos’s.

_Constance_ he mouths, eyes closed briefly, before continuing:

And here the _you_ is plural, as it continues for the rest of the sentence.

Athos gives a small huff of breath that may be a laugh, or something else.

“There’s more,” says d’Artagnan.

“Oh,” says the other, softly, “you’ve been withholding from me, is it?”

He waits until Athos’s eyes are on him and reaches slowly into his pocket, pulling out the square of dense, intricately folded parchment, holding it out, but not too far, making Athos draw in closer in order to claim it, fingers tracing slow across his palm.

Weeks? Closer to months, he thinks. And: _no wonder I’ve been such an arse lately. That and the injury, of course._

Athos settles on the ground near his good leg, takes his time unfolding it, and d’Artagnan watches his face brighten with several emotions as he takes in what’s disclosed. There are two pieces of paper – one a chessboard, continuing the match Athos started a couple of months ago, presumably. He smiles, refolds that, and puts it in his pocket, carefully, then turns and shows the other to him – several lines of the same nonsense Athos had sent in the first place. She’s clearly done him proud.

“Go on then,” he says, swinging a gentle foot to brush him, _impress me_. He turns again and d’Artagnan watches his profile, enjoys the unguarded moment, the slow, deliberate, caressing cadences of his captain.

“Your wife,” he says slowly, with relish, putting the sheet up to just under his nose and taking a deep and deliberate breath, “is a singular woman.”

“My wife,” he replies, “is an absolute _menace_.” Athos drawling “ _good boy_ ” in That Voice has done terrible, delicious things to his insides.

“Hmm.” He folds the letter carefully, puts it in his pocket.

The rain is starting to hammer against the swaying canvas, pelting against the door that Porthos so ostentatiously secured at all points.

“Do you…?” asks Athos, very slowly, the low growl of it offsetting any trepidation the words might imply. His eyes climb to meet d’Artagnan’s as his body rises higher, closer.

He feels his jaw go a little slack, gazes right back at him, sees the sky of his eyes almost subsumed in pupil black.

“Do I…?”

“Want…”

“Always.”

“Still?”

“ _Always_.” and he’s leaning forward as Athos moves up, snake fast, hand behind his head, drawing him into a gunpowder kiss, all command and groan, his scent lapping him around – battlefield made flesh.

They’ve barely had time, this whole time on campaign, for even the swiftest, most furtive grope and muffled, pragmatic, grip and pull to completion. There has been even less time for tenderness, and he knows there’s nearly no time now and, closed door or not, someone could still call for the captain but, but God, those lips, these lips, this hair like black silk, the scent of him, changed by living roughly in fear and pain and frustration, but still d’Artagnan.

 _You could have died_.

Hush. Please.

Their arms go hard around each other, leaning, awkward, and he surges into the space between d’Artagnan’s legs, clutching at the thick, black leather of his new doublet. He draws back, runs his hands over his thighs, hearing d’Artagnan’s breath stutter, looks up at him and says, in that calm voice of command: “Unbuckle yourself.”

D’Artagnan’s hands fly up to the first, then he catches and holds Athos’s eyes and sets those long fingers to undoing it slowly, his expression unreadable in the low, twitching light. The purr and hum of leather and metal is loud and d’Artagnan absolutely will not speed up, a small smile on his lips appearing as Athos’s breathing catches. He slowly pushes his left hand as far inside the small gap in the leathers as it will go and holds it there for the space of a long, deliberate blink before starting on the buttons leading down to the next.

Athos feels a slow smile spread on his face, thinks how he might play his next move, draws his hands back to nearly d’Artagnan’s knees and, careful not to lean too much weight on them, slides forward, as slowly as he can bear, thumbs dipped low and circling lightly along d’Artagnan’s inner thighs. He is rewarded by d’Artagnan’s lips pressing together hard for a moment, eyebrows rising in the middle. The next buckle comes undone a trifle quicker than the first, but his hand disappears inside to the wrist this time, strokes up and over the right side of his chest and up to his shoulder, eyes closing at his own touch, lower lip licked and bitten softly.

He heels down and swallows a groan, determined not to be the first to give way to that, confounded then by d’Artagnan’s own light moan, too artfully timed and pitched to be entirely reflex, but still rendering his mouth suddenly dry as the rules switch out from under him. This isn’t Constance – this is d’Artagnan, for whom surrender is his strength.

D’Artagnan’s fingers emerge, and slide to the last set of buttons before the final buckle, lip bitten still, eyes enormous. Athos can feel the breath thicken in his throat. A rapid flicker of vivid images are crashing across his inner sight, each of which are tempered the next second by the reality of d’Artagnan’s still-healing injury. And the fact of potentially needing to withdraw to seemly distance at any given moment.

 _Do you_ ever _stop being a tactician?_

No. Shut up.

 _So what do you_ want?

Oh God, everything. Suddenly: _everything_.

On a groan, as d’Artagnan deliberately strokes the length of his unbuckled torso with his left, he takes his right hand from the arm of the chair and lays the palm on his own cheek, turning and nuzzling into it, hearing d’Artagnan’s breathing shift again. He draws those long, copper fingers across his mouth, parting slightly further on each pass as he continues to rub back and forth, until d’Artagnan is panting and Athos sends his tongue out to caress.

D’Artagnan, a species of shock running through him, gives an entirely unexaggerated moan, left hand digging convulsively into his own flesh. He can feel his eyes sting, absurdly; something held increasingly clenched over these past few months softens until it almost feels like danger, but he trusts Athos, no-one better, and this. And.

Athos draws his fingers entirely inside his mouth slowly, firmly, circling and lapping, and d’Artagnan sends out another sound, now perilously like a whimper, at this. Teasing forgotten, he reaches to Athos to run the fingers of his free hand through his curls and it’s been, God, it’s been _too long_.

He pulls his fingers free and cups the sides of Athos’s head, drawing him up, leaning down, wanting nothing but his mouth against him, that clever tongue circling, beckoning, Jesu, _yes_.

Athos voices a sound like anguish and delight combined, muffled by d’Artagnan’s lips, and he can nearly – God, _so nearly_ – forget about the possibility of being interrupted.

“I want to taste you,” he groans, stepping further from control.

“Yes, _yes_ ,” pants d’Artagnan, fast and unsteady against his lips, in a welter of short breaths.

Together their hands tangle on d’Artagnan’s points, but soon enough Athos is drawing him out, careful and precise, to their twinned moans. Then he lunges forward, hands hard around d’Artagnan’s wrists, pinning them to either side, and d’Artagnan lets out a high, desperate keen, then bites his lips together to muffle the rawer sound that breaks from his throat as Athos engulfs him.

How has he gone this long without that wash of taste and scent, drinking him in, massaging with his tongue, drawing and cupping with his lips? His body remembers this so well, knows the precise moment d’Artagnan will… there… start to swell that extra notch, begin to rock. He pulls up, fingers tightening briefly in admonition. “No.” He meets his gaze, brows high. “I move. Not you.”

He lets out a muted, strangled “ _Fuck!_ ”

He does not say: _mind your injury_. He does not say: _I don’t want you hurting yourself_. He merely commands, and that gentles and arouses d’Artagnan, even now.

But he feels the small weight of it draw something of himself back from his lover, so plunges again to taste, to moan around him, to feel a locked and desperate tension in him, the tiny thrusts he can’t contain and probably doesn’t even notice. To feel his own mouth flood with his lover’s arousal, feel his own throb low in gut and groin, his own hips aching to pump, God, to feel d’Artagnan against him, for them both to be naked, warm, safe, clasped in each other’s arms, ah _fuck_ , ah _fucking hell_.

D’Artagnan’s moans are increasing in pitch and pace as Athos’s movements hasten, taking as much of him as he can bear, then thinking: _fuck it_ , releasing his wrists so he can stroke the rest of his cock with one hand, touch his chest with the other, and that’s too much, all of a sudden, for d’Artagnan, who rakes one hand through Athos’s hair, and gags himself with the ball of the other as he yells his muffled release, spending deep in Athos’s mouth.

Athos falls away, swallowing, head rocking backwards, body arcing in a series of heaves on the floor, fingers scrabbling to open his doublet, pull his shirt out, wrench his points apart, take himself hard in hand, fuck, _fuck!_

He hears and feels a thump besides him. “Nono,” he says, teeth clenched around the gentleness, panting into his stuttering strokes. “ _Nnh!_ No, your leg…”

“ _Fuck_ the leg,” says d’Artagnan, low and raw, and leans to push Athos’s hands away and take him deep into his throat.

Athos feels control drop away from him, vertiginous – terror and glory combined as he thrashes and thrusts on the floor of the tent, fingers clawing at the air and ground, everything forgotten but the sliding sensation of wet, loving heat around him. “God. Christ. _Fuck_ ,” he manages, guttural and breathless. “I. I–!”

“ _Mmmh!_ ” cries d’Artagnan, and the vibration pulls him up over the edge, biting hard into the back of his own wrist to barely muffle his own release before collapsing, boneless, to the floor.

When he returns to himself, he is completely supine. He lifts his head rapidly to check on d’Artagnan, who, alongside him, top to toe, is in a very similar position. He lets his head fall back again for a moment. Then raises it. “Are you all right?”

“Hah,” comes the grinning, closed-eye reply.

“All right.” His head sinks back. Part of him is trying to work out when Porthos will be back. He bats that part away. Shhh.

“Although…”

He goes still. “Yes…?”

D’Artagnan stifles a snigger. “I’m going to need some help getting up.”

“You got _up_ just fine by yourself earlier.”

“Oooooh-hoo _hoo!_ ”

He smirks. And it’s been a long time since he’s done that. He half sits up, roughly pulls his points together, and looks over to d’Artagnan, who is still lying flat-out, blissful expression somewhat at odds with his stern, stiff black leathers. “Can I give you a hand?”

“What: _again?_ Dear _God_ , you’re in _satiable_ …!”

They laugh, wheezy and near-voiceless, loose and unaffected – men laughing for the sheer silliness of the thing rather than to be heard to do so. Athos lets his head and shoulders down to the ground again and just allows himself to be merry. His fingers, leisurely with gratitude, fasten his remaining points.

“Saints’ bones,” says d’Artagnan, “to hear you _laugh…!_ ”

“And you,” he responds, softly.

“Ah,” is all he can say to that. After a while, Athos hears him whistle softly and start to snigger.

He raises himself on his elbows. “What?”

“Just wondering how the _fuck_ I’m going to put _this_ in a letter back home…!”

“Oh,” says Athos, casually, “I’m sure we can find a way to encode this to everyone’s satisfaction.”

When Porthos stamps and coughs ostentatiously at the entrance, a while later, they are still on the floor, lobbing increasingly flamboyant euphemisms at each other and sniggering softly.

Porthos lets himself in to their hollered welcome, stares at them, dripping, shakes his head, and lumbers to pull d’Artagnan’s chair up to the brazier, hanging his cloak to sizzle sullenly in the heat.

“You’ll catch your deaths,” is all he says, and it’s on d’Artagnan’s lips to say: _Already caught a small one_ , but he thinks better of it, after all.

Sobering, quiet, but still feeling warm all through, they tug and stagger to a rise, hug, and roll themselves into their beds.

“Thanks,” says Athos to their damp brother, quietly, in passing, remembering not to clap his shoulder.

“Don’t mention it,” returns Porthos. He sounds like he means it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #### First erotic part of Constance’s Letter:
> 
> It’s nights like these, the wind crying and battering at the shutters, that this bed seems too big. I summon your warmth and the slant of your smile, the glitter of your eyes as the fire settles, and none of it like the flames your hands crackle across my skin, the gale that roars in me, stealing my breath with the touch of your lips, your fingertips everywhere.
> 
> #### Second erotic part of Constance’s Letter:
> 
> I imagine you can see me, imagine you drinking in the sight and sound, the warmth and want of me as I try to match everywhere you would touch me, if you were here. I imagine my name on your lips as mine shapes yours in the speaking dark.
> 
> #### Third erotic part of Constance’s Letter:
> 
> It is good, but it is not the same. I miss you,
> 
> #### Final erotic part of Constance’s Letter:
> 
> and I hope you are well, and able to share comfort with those closest to you, in the giving and receiving of gifts.
> 
> #### Postscript of Constance’s Letter:
> 
> P.S. Please thank Athos for his missive. My reply is enclosed; I hope you both have a moment for him to read it to you.
> 
> #### Constance’s Letter to Athos Decoded:
> 
> 24 January 1636
> 
> Dear Athos,
> 
> Many thanks for your letter, which arrived with d’Artagnan’s this morning. I hope you have time to read this to him. I am glad to hear that you are keeping your heads above water. When the floods rise here, as they still do, from time to time, I am confident that I have everything well in hand.
> 
> Please tell d’Artagnan that I hope he is being a good boy, for both your sakes. I am happy that you are finding time to be kind to each other – something I will picture gladly in my mind tonight.
> 
> Be well, dear Athos,
> 
> With great affection,
> 
> _Constance_


End file.
